President Kageyama
by Green Kneesocks
Summary: It's just easier to think of her as President Kageyama. Mob is just too much, sometimes. SerizawaXMob. Fem!Mob


It helped if he called her President Kageyama.

In his mind, of course. In real life he called her Master Kageyama. Well he had called her Master Kageyama, before, but she didn't like that. Then he called her Miss Kageyama but she hadn't like that either. After that he called her by her given name but she didn't care for that, either. He settled on her nickname, eventually, which she liked. He called her Mob. Everyone called her Mob. Well her brother and that blond boy she was friends with called her Shigeko, and Sho called her Ritsu's big sis, but everyone else called her Mob. He didn't know why.

It didn't fit at all.

She did not blend in, she was anything but a background character. He could see her, always, from any point in the city he could see her. Her aura. He knew that among espers he was unusually powerful. That was why he could see her from any distance. She was bright, bright as a star, but not everyone could see her from far away, also like a star. Sho could see her, too. He was powerful for someone his age, more powerful than Serizawa, but even he wasn't anywhere near her level. Mob's level. The girl who had defeated the president and lived. The girl who took on the president and lived. The girl who risked her life to save everyone she cared about and lived.

The girl who had saved him.

She saved him in every single way a person could be saved. She had saved him from dying so many times on that awful day. She had saved not only his physical self but his entire life. He had slept through fifteen, no, eighteen years of his life. She had woken him up. Like an alarm clock she had shocked him awake and now there was no going back to sleep. She had shown him the true value of friendship. She had shown him the true value of joining society. She had woken him up and shown him what he was missing. What he was missing and what he was doing. What he had been an accomplice to.

He had been an accomplice to some very, very, very serious crimes.

Kidnapping.

Destruction of private property.

Destruction of public property.

Attempted murder.

Illegal use of broadcasting signals.

Treason.

High treason.

So, yes, switching sides had saved him. He didn't know what happened to the president, well he did, but what was currently happening to him…Joseph had said either cruel experiments or execution. Well he hadn't said cruel but it had been implied. Sho certainly thought that it had been implied. Poor Sho…he hadn't known how to comfort him. He didn't get sad, he got mad, so in the end Serizawa just put up a barrier and let Sho tire himself out.

He was bad at comforting people.

She had managed to comfort him, though.

She had that effect on people. Her soft voice, the way she looked at you like you were the only person in the world. The way she could take your hand in hers and tell you that it was all going to be ok. That you were going to be ok. The way that she meant it. When you were her friend…when you were her friend then she would literally move heaven and Earth for you.

She saved him.

He hit her with his umbrella but she still saved him. She took his hand and told him that she was so sorry. She stole his energy that he had been charging up and she said that she was so sorry. She gave it back to him and said that she was so sorry. She saw his life, the sad tale of it. She shared her life, too. The sad tale of it. Sad and happy. Sad because she had been through so much but happy because…because she didn't let it stop her. She didn't let anything stop her. She was the same as him. She was also the vessel for a terrible power that she couldn't always control. She had also accidentally hurt someone who she loved. She had also put her trust in someone who ended up hurting her.

But she got better.

She got right back up again and kept going. No matter what life threw at her she got right back up. She didn't hide herself away from the world, she lived in it. She grabbed life and ran with it. Her life was her own. She believed that. Such a simple concept but also one so very powerful…her life was her own.

His life was his own.

She had taught him that.

His life was his own but she had saved his life. He owed her. That was why he took this job, because he owed her. He owed her for saving him in every single way a person could be saved. He owed her so much and he had no idea how to go about paying her back. So he just tried to be a good person. She said that a lot, too. Reigen had taught her that, the man that she called Master. She was the student and he was the Master.

Serizawa had barely exchanged words with the man when they first met on that stairwell in the cultural spire. Him wallowing in his own self-pity. He couldn't save Sho and he couldn't save her, either. He had been so certain that she was going to her death and he had also been so certain that he was too much of a coward to do anything but then a man ran past him with a toy gun clutched in his hands.

And no aura to speak of.

"Where is she?" that was what the man had asked, breathlessly. Serizawa just pointed up the stairs. How could the man have not seen her? Then he focused. No aura. A normal man was going to face the president with a toy gun. To save that girl.

A normal man.

For her.

And so, of course, he knew that he had to act. He decided to do something courageous for once and he saved the man's life just in time, too. He lost his umbrella. He turned against the president, the man who saved him. The president had saved him in every way a person could be saved. But that wasn't true. It wasn't President Suzuki who had saved him but the girl.

Kageyama Shigeko.

Mob.

Master Kageyama.

But she was just Mob now.

She was just Mob and the man was just Reigen and he was still just Serizawa and the three of them were just Spirits and Such. It was so nice. He had a place to go to every single day, the same place every single day. No more waking up in strange hotel rooms. No more walking through streets where he can't read the signs and hearing conversations that he couldn't understand. The same chair and the same desk and the same sort of jobs every single day. Well, not literally every single day but a lot of days and it was always the same types of jobs, too. Consistent. Safe.

Exorcisms. Curses. That sort of thing.

Things that Reigen couldn't handle by himself. Reigen was just a man, a normal man. He was just a normal man and yet he took on such a dangerous job…if he could do it then Serizawa could do it too. He could and he would and he did. He did the hell out of his job. Reigen even said that Spirits and Such had never made so much money before. Serizawa was so glad to be needed, to be useful, and to be praised genuinely. He didn't care that he had a lot to do. He didn't care that his job didn't leave him much free time, sometimes. What would he have done with more free time anyway? Watch more TV? Build more plastic models? Play more videogames?

"Sometimes Master forgets that other people have personal lives. Don't be afraid to tell him if he's calling you in too often." She had told him that one day. It was after work, they were getting ramen. Reigen was in the bathroom and it had just been him and her sitting there at the table. She had been across from him. Directly across. He had always been at President Suzuki's side, and always standing. Hovering behind him ready to lay down his life for the man who saved him. The man who he revered with every fiber of his being. The man who didn't care if Serizawa lived or died. They never sat down as equals.

She sat down with him as equals. Even though they clearly were not.

He didn't quite understand what she was telling him. He liked to feel useful. What more could someone want? Reigen was his actual friend, sort of, and he was actually a nice person. So was she. If he didn't go in to work then he couldn't see either of them. As it stood he didn't even see her every single day. She came in a lot, sometimes, and then there would be stretches when he didn't see her. She had her own life. Her life was her own.

He was so glad when she was around, though.

When he could be near her. She had a quiet presence, much like President Suzuki's. Quiet but strong. She was, after all, the strongest of all espers. But she did nothing with it. President Suzuki used to talk about his dream, the dream of a new world. Serizawa hadn't taken it literally, idiot that he was, but there was at least something that they were working towards. Him and President Suzuki. President Kageyama, on the other hand, wasn't working towards anything.

She just sort of existed.

She existed and others followed her. She didn't even have to do anything. People followed President Suzuki because he showed his power. The power to hurt, the power to help, the power to destroy, the power to create. He had the power to do whatever you needed him to do and he showed it. She never showed hers. She just sort of was. She went to school and had friends and liked milk and cats and manga and anime…she was just a regular person.

She was human the same as everyone else.

She didn't have to show her power. She didn't have to do anything to make others follow her. They just did. She had this way of looking at you like you were the only thing that mattered. When she spoke it was like she was speaking for you and you alone. When she talked…when she talked she didn't go on about grand dreams and the perfect world order. She talked about…a lot of things. When you could get her talking. Her family, her friends, her school, her club, shows she liked, mangas she'd read…the things that made her, her. Even after spending three years glued to President Suzuki's side he still didn't know anything about the man as a person. Nothing at all. It had taken him an entire year to figure out that Sho was his son, not just some kid that hung around them sometimes…and that was only after Sho had called President Suzuki dad!

But he knew things about Mob. Her favorite kind of cat was the calico. Her favorite kind of milk was plain. Her favorite food was ramen with a lot of pork. She hated cilantro. She wore her hair in braids because she tended to lose control of her powers and the first thing to stand up was her hair. She hated wearing pants because they were to itchy and constricting. She couldn't stay mad at anyone, not even Reigen after he said a bunch of mean stuff to her.

She was very forgiving.

She even forgave him for his part in everything that happened.

"I'm not mad at you, Serizawa. You said that you were sorry and you meant it. Also you saved Master Reigen's life. You did the right thing in the end and that's what matters. You're my friend, Serizawa, I could never stay mad at you." She had said one day when they were out on a job. They were in a park. There was a man faced dog spirit hanging around and scaring people. Either that or a real dog.

She had said that they would be a while, and there probably was no spirit there at all, Master Reigen just really liked dogs.

So they walked and they talked. He held his umbrella in his hand, a new one, and he walked along with her. He was at her side. He had to remember to keep up with her, not to walk a step or so behind her. Not to watch out for any sign of danger. Not to become hyper aware of everything and anything that could happen to her.

Not to worry about failing her.

He could not fail her. After she said all of that. After she had forgiven him for all that he did. He could not fail her. He could not give her reason to cast her aside. It's an irrational fear but one that plagues him. She's someone who, by all accounts, should have been just another President Suzuki. She shouldn't have been like that with him, like they were friends. Like they were equals.

President Kagayama was nothing like President Suzuki.

President Kagyama would never say anything as cruel as 'I never considered any of you my comrades' even though it would have been so easy…that was not the sort of person that she was. President Kageyama was a good person. She was someone who cared about all of her friends. She was someone who considered him a friend. She would never use him. She would never cast him aside.

But he still didn't want to fail her.

But there was nothing to fail at.

How did one fail at walking through the park? How did one fail at looking for a spirit? Well by not finding the spirit but, according to her, it may not have even existed. It either existed or it didn't and either way Reigen would never be upset at them over this so he had no reason to worry. He could just exist. He could just exist, there, in the moment with President Kageyama.

She existed in his mind as President Kageyama. Even though she liked to be called Mob, even though he called her Mob, she was still President Kageyama to him. It was just easier. He didn't know how to be her equal, to just exist with her, so he let himself fall back into old habits. He followed closely behind her, he made sure that she was safe, and he made sure not to do anything that would upset her.

That was last one was more him making sure not to do the things that upset President Suzuki.

He made sure not to speak out of turn or fall behind or follow too closely or too far behind or anything like that. It was just easier. It was just so much easier than trying to figure out how he could be her equal. She was more powerful than him, she was braver than him, she was stronger than him in every way. Not just stronger in terms of raw power but in the real way, too.

She always just got right back up again. No matter what life threw at her. She never got overwhelmed in large groups of people. She never looked up at the sky and wanted to hide because it was just so vast. She never got upset with herself whenever she said or did something awkward. She just rolled with everything.

He wished that he could have even a tenth of her strength.

But being near her was good enough. Being near her was an experience in and of itself. It was like what he imagined standing on the surface of the sun was like. Well, minus the burning to death part. It was warmth, an all over sort of warmth. That was her aura. She had just so much raw power to her that she couldn't contain it within her vessel. Standing near her was just…tops. Warmth and safety and friendship. When he was near her…not that he was near her all that often. He didn't have to follow her around after all.

But he wanted to.

He wanted to be useful to her. He wanted to keep her safe. He wanted to be near her. He wanted to listen to her talk about her world and all the things in it. He wanted to hear even the most mundane things about her life. He could have listened to her talk for hours. Her voice was so mellifluous, not a true monotone at all. Smooth and sweet with it's own subtle ebbs and flows, ups and downs. He wished she spoke more.

She spoke to him, not at him.

And that was just tops.

Everything about her was just tops. She was so sweet, so nice, so smart, so kind, so wise, so pretty, so adorably small…so everything! She was everything in this world that was pure and good and right poured into flesh and sent down as heaven's gift to humanity. That was how he felt about her, sometimes. She was just so…she was perfect. She was so perfect and he was so glad to be there with her. He would have followed President Suzuki to the ends of the Earth because he THOUGHT that Suzuki had offered him real friendship and acceptance.

He would follow President Kageyama to the ends of the Earth because she actually gave him friendship and acceptance. He would have done whatever she asked of him, been whatever he wanted her to be. Anything. He would do anything at all for her. She just had to ask. She could ask for the moon on a string and he would gladly go out and by some balloon string and make a lasso. Not just because he owed her but because he wanted to make her happy.

She was so pretty when she was happy.

There was a prettiness to her. It was the sort of prettiness that you had to really look at for a while. Not that he spent that much time looking. Not that it would have been socially acceptable to spend a great amount of time, or any amount of time, staring at her. The brown of her eyes, the softness of her hair…that he imagined. He had never actually touched it, of course, but it looked just so soft. The way her skin was so pale and smooth and…and other such thoughts that he knew not to have about her.

So it was easier to think of her as President Kageyama.

Someone untouchable. Not that he would ever! But someone who he could never even think about in that way. The way that made him stutter until he had no idea what he had even been trying to say in the first place. The way that made him so nervous that sometimes he could barely remember his own name. The way that kept him up at night just staring at the ceiling tossing and turning trying to exorcise all thoughts of her from his mind.

So it was just easier to think of her as President Kageyama.

Because he had no shot with her anyway. Even if he did she wanted nothing to do with him like that. He had eyes. He knew that way she looked at Reigen. He had ears. He'd heard the way she spoke to Reigen. He saw how the two of them were together. Why would she want anything to do with someone like him when she had someone like Reigen?

But she still spoke to him.

But she still offered him her friendship.

And that was enough.

It had to be.

Because she was President Kageyama and he was just Serizawa.


End file.
